


Practice

by faithlessone



Category: The Greatest Showman (2017)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 14:46:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13343439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithlessone/pseuds/faithlessone
Summary: Anne shares one of her other talents with Phillip.





	Practice

Luckily, she notices it before the show.

It’s not a bad tear, just some of the ruffles pulling away from her leotard. She must have caught it on something the previous night and not noticed. Unlikely that anyone would have seen. She flies so high above the crowd, falls so fast and so hard that she’d be amazed if someone in the audience would have noticed. But it’s the principle of it. She’s an artist, and an artist doesn’t perform in a torn costume.

Grabbing her needle and thread, she settles down on a bench in the corner. The afternoon preparations for that night’s show continue around her; the hustle and bustle strangely peaceful.

So peaceful that she doesn’t notice Mr Carlyle sitting himself down beside her.

“Remarkable,” he breathes.

She can’t help flinching a little at his words, soft as they are. “You’ve seen my costumes before.”

He leans a little closer, reaching out a tentative hand to brush against the ruffles she is carefully stitching back into place. Powerless, confused, she watches him do it. Is he drunk? She can’t smell whiskey on his breath, even as close as he is. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s not. A clever drunk can cover such obvious signs.

“It’s as if it were never torn,” he clarifies, his voice still wonder-filled.

She frowns. “Have you never seen sewing before? Your mother never…”

“My mother prefers to spend her evenings at parties and plays and promenades,” he interrupts, looking up and catching her eye for the first time. “I doubt she would even know where to find a needle in our home, let alone use one.”

Sometimes she can barely believe just how different his life has been from hers. One of her very earliest memories is of her own mother sat in front of a dying fire, a pile of mending at her feet. As soon as she was old enough to hold a needle, she learnt how to stitch on old clothes that had only the barest life in them, cushion covers, things that wouldn’t be seen.

But to him, the mere task is magic.

“How do you make it look so good?” he asks.

“Just as I make everything I do look good,” she replies, and at his mischievous grin, she adds, “practice.”

He makes an expression of mock-seriousness, leaning back and nodding. “Of course. Practice.”

Then, abruptly, he rises to his feet and darts away. Did she say something wrong? Mentally she replays their conversation, but can find no excuse for his flight. So she shrugs and goes back to her work. Just a few more stitches and she can press the costume ready for the evening’s show.

As abruptly as he had left, he soon returns, bearing his scarlet ringmaster’s coat in hand.

She raises an eyebrow.

“I caught it on a nail, see?” he explains, sitting back down on the bench beside her.

He holds up the shoulder of the coat for her inspection, showing the tear in the seam. A very small, very neat tear.

Her eyebrow remains raised.

“There are many fine tailors in this city, Mr Carlyle, and many finer seamstresses. Any of whom, I’m sure, would be happy to take care of that for you.”

She tries not to sound as insulted as she feels, but the irritation cannot help but show through. Just because she is capable doesn’t mean she is obliged to do such a task. P.T. hired her as a trapeze artist, not a maid. She‘s spent too many years learning to stand up for herself to bend so easily to his will now.

Rather than bristling, as she had expected, he colours. 

"I didn't... You misunderstand me, Miss Wheeler. I thought, perhaps, if you're not too busy, you could show me how to fix it myself?"

She frowns.

"P.T. sews, you know," he continues, if only to fill the empty air. "I think he tries to pretend he doesn't, at least in front of me, but I've seen him."

"Mrs Barnum told me his father was a tailor," she explains, a little gratified to have a rare upper hand in their conversation. "It's how they met. His father was fitting hers."

If she isn't careful, she could get lost in the brightness of his eyes, the radiance of his smile.

"Then it would appear a Barnum’s Circus ringmaster, even a ringmaster-in-training, should know how to sew, would you not agree?"

The logic doesn't follow, not really, but she can't help but nod. Then, she frowns again.

"Except, I have no thread that colour."

From his pocket, he produces a reel in the perfect scarlet. "P.T. sews," he repeats, grinning.

She ties off the last stitch on her own costume and puts it to one side, still half-waiting for the punchline, for him to walk off and leave her to get on with his work, but he doesn't. He takes the now thread-less needle from her fingers, regards it thoughtfully for a moment and then hands it back to her with the reel of cotton, sliding down the bench just a little closer.

“I didn’t see how you started,” he explains, a little apologetically.

She threads the needle for him and sews the first few stitches, over-exaggerating her movements and narrating clearly as she does when she teaches WD a new trick she’s devised. She’s still fairly convinced with every stitch that he will walk away, assuming that she will continue what she’s started.

If he does, she won’t.

“It would have been better to take the coat apart and fix the seam from the inside,” she says, half-an-eye on him to make sure he’s still watching her. He is. “But that would mean removing the lining. It wouldn’t be finished by show-time.”

“Will it show?” He sounds unconcerned, mesmerised by the movement of her hands.

She holds the little bit she’s already done up to the light. The thread is a very, very close match to the fabric, and it is a very _neat_ rip. Neat enough that, were it not for the fact that she’s certain Mr Carlyle would not damage his clothing on purpose, she would find it difficult to believe that it happened on a _nail_.

“If you’re careful, it shouldn’t be obvious under the stage lights. If you’re lucky, P.T. may not even notice.”

Rather than continuing, she hands the coat back to him. His smile grows a little uncertain as she presses the needle into his fingers.

“Just do as I did.”

His first stitch isn’t as clumsy as she was expecting. He has trouble piercing the fabric at first, wary of pressing hard enough, but when he conquers that, it is reasonably straight and close enough to her last. When he’s completed it, he holds it up for her inspection. She can’t help smiling.

“A few more like that, and you’ll get there.”

He nods, returning her smile. “Practice?”

“Practice.”

They sit together in companionable silence; him sewing slowly and carefully, her supervising. There’s still a tiny voice in the back of her head saying that he will leave if she takes her eyes off him, if she puts a more socially-appropriate distance between them on the bench, but she tries to ignore it. He hasn’t shown any sign of flight.

Then a sudden noise, something falling, crashes through the relaxed hubbub. She jumps to her feet at the sound. It’s just one of the stagehands tipping over a piece of scenery. Nothing new there. But the swiftly following yelp turns her attention back to Phillip… to Mr Carlyle.

“What happened?” she asks.

He holds up a finger in response, the smallest red mark visible above a tiny bead of blood.

The forlorn expression on his face is a picture and she can barely stifle the giggle that threatens to burst from her.

“Does it hurt?” she asks, trying to keep her face straight.

He almost nods, and then shakes his head firmly, his manly ego quickly overcoming whatever weakness the needle stick had brought to bear.

She glances down at the coat. His repair is almost finished. Not quite as neat as she would have done it, of course, but not a _bad_ attempt by any standards.

“I can finish that for you, if you’d like.”

She silences the thought that this was precisely the situation she had been determined not to get into. He had proved himself willing to do the work. If the needle stick has changed his mind, she doesn’t _mind_ finishing it. But, to her slight and undeserved surprise, he shakes his head again, quickly sucking the afflicted finger. Frustratingly, the image makes her lose track of her train of thought.

“To wilful men, the injuries that they themselves procure must be their schoolmasters.”

He says it like a quote he has heard a hundred times before, but she doesn’t recognise it as a reference.

“Your father?”

He grins. “Shakespeare, but I’m sure my father would love to hear you say that. He has certainly quoted it often enough.”

She raises her eyebrow again, brought wholly back to herself. “I don’t think a pricked finger is quite what Shakespeare had in mind.”

He laughs. “Probably not. My point stands though. I’d have never learnt anything if I gave something up the first time I got hurt.”

Thinking of the thousand, the thousand thousand times she’s fallen from a rope or trapeze or high beam and gone straight back to try the trick again, she smiles. She wonders when he’s going to stop surprising her, stop showing her that there’s more to him than fancy suits and fancier connections.

With one last grin, he turns his attention back to his work. She watches him more closely than she needs to, finally letting herself enjoy the warmth of him in just his shirtsleeves, so close to her. Not that she’d ever admit it, to anyone, of course.

Before she knows it, he’s holding up the all-but-complete repair for her approval.

“I wasn’t paying attention to how you finished,” he apologises.

She almost, _almost_ tells him that it’s not good enough, that he needs to start over. Partly to see the look on his face, and partly because perhaps he would and then they could stay sat here together for a little while longer. But that wouldn’t be wise. She’s already finding it difficult to keep her head clear.

Instead, she shows him carefully how to tie off his work. Then she holds it up to the light.

“Acceptable?” He’s got that earnest tone in his voice again. The one that makes her head spin.

She tilts her head, making a show of inspecting it closely, taking just long enough that jokingly, impatiently, he bumps her shoulder with his.

Caught off-guard, she feels herself tipping sideways. With both hands occupied holding the coat, she’s powerless to arrest her fall. It’s a familiar feeling.

Then, suddenly, she’s still, and his arm is around her waist.

Her heart races harder than it ever does when she has both feet on solid ground. It feels like he’s surrounding her entirely. Every one of her senses is filled with him.

Almost as suddenly as it happened, it’s over.

“My apologies, Miss Wheeler,” he says, somehow so much further away from her even though she’s sure he’s in the same position they’d been sitting in before. “So, what’s the verdict?”

It takes her half a second to figure out he’s talking about the coat.

She makes herself grin, swallowing the dizzy feeling and storing it to be mused on later.

“More practice needed.”

 


End file.
